We can all agree that EA Sports and Konami have been the dominant forces in the football genre for over two decades with the likes of EA FC (formerly FIFA) and eFootball (formerly PES).
Very few have attempted to break into the hierarchy, but XTEN Limited and their subsidiary Strikerz Inc. are rising up to the challenge with UFL. Endorsed by the legendary Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s billed as an immersive and revolutionary experience in a fair and free-to-play world.
Can UFL dare to dream and actually infiltrate the football game market with a joyous title offering a decent alternative?
As UFL is free-to-play, a cavalcade of modes isn’t expected straight out of the blocks, but first impressions are everything and it’s barebones here. Your options are limited to local one-off matches, casual online match-ups and ranked encounters. The local match type highlights the lack of licensing with only five real teams featured alongside twenty-four teams of hybrid squads. Aside from having a quick kickabout with some friends on the couch, it’s not that interesting.
Before discussing the online side, I must delve into the Ultimate Team style squad building aspect, for it’s this ‘dream team’ that you’ll be using. You’ll be given a starting lineup of players on par with Blackpool FC and are asked to choose a star player from a small selection offered – I picked an ageing Juan Cuadrado. The idea is that you can then acquire credits to spend on the players you want from the market.
To be fair, there are a ton of well-known and lesser-known folks available, ranging from Erling Haaland and Bruno Fernandes, to Ander Herrera and Barry Bannan. The prices are rightfully extortionate in some cases, so you really will have to earn the superstars. But there’s another element to factor in – the squad’s reputation also needs building up in order to accommodate the integration of better players. It’s a good move to inhibit everyone from possessing ridiculous teams too quickly. Although there’s a slight flaw because of the opportunity to purchase credits using cash, so hopefully the rep limits will still help balance things out.
Upon venturing online, the casual mode is only really good for trying out your team with no repercussions. Hence, going ranked is where the action is at, with wins seeing you climb up ranks in a collection of Divisions, and losses potentially sending you back down. Aside from garnering reputation and credits, a rather cool feature comes into play as the players earn experience and receive permanent stat boosts. It’s slow and steady, but I like that you’re constantly evolving the team, while also acquiring skills to improve traits such as first time shots, interceptions, and dribbling.
However, once you begin a match – a process which is pretty swift thanks to crossplay – the major flaws with UFL rear their ugly heads. Not in a visual sense, because nobody expects UFL to look as good as EA Sports FC 25 and so it’s acceptably average. It’s more a fact of the utterly disappointing gameplay that’s littered with the bad stuff the ‘big boys’ have learned to omit from their titles.
Focusing on the most worrying parts first, and the goalkeepers are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard and you wonder if Bruce Grobbelaar (Google him, kids) had made a comeback. It’s like they cannot be bothered, with saves usually occurring when you whack the ball straight at them. And then there are the appalling collision mechanics, with players often unmoved upon contact. Honestly, I can run into and subsequently power past a beefy defender time and time again with weak, quite terrible players.
Which brings me onto the absolute pace abuse going on as players run straight ahead and score, or head down the wing and cutback incessantly. The character models move like tanks if trying to position the defenders and the ping-pong passing makes it easy to exploit this. Additionally, all the player instructions and tactics in the world won’t matter if the AI is as dumb as a bag of rocks.
I know what you’re thinking, show mercy. But I have to mention the weird bugs that occur in UFL, including the goalie dancing around the ball like he’s performing a ritual, before throwing an imaginary ball whilst the real thing sits untouchable at the base of the goalpost. Another incident saw the ball go in the net and through it, but Michael Oliver must have been on VAR so it wasn’t deemed a goal.
The fake shots are smooth and cool though. I say that in jest because it’s difficult to find positives on the field of play when there are many irritations that I thought were a thing of the past. Heck, the opposition no-showed on a few occasions and the computer-controlled team were basically dummies. Tweaks can be implemented, sure, but the fundamentals are not there.
I’ve touched upon some of the microtransactions already, however there are a host of options to spend money on as well as in-game earnings, to be fair. The most fascinating are Skins, with packs of these available to buy using different currencies, which are then applied to your favourite players to boost certain aspects. Considering that multiple copies are required before any improvement, it’s a slog to actually upgrade one player, let alone a full team. It’s different, and I appreciate the idea. Sadly, I won’t stick around long enough to kit out the entire squad.
Other features, like the Premium Pass and Challenges are lacking in substance, with the pass bizarrely asking me to spend currency to pick up the rewards I had unlocked. It doesn’t make sense at all, while the challenges are either stupidly easy or something excessive like winning ten games in a row.
It must be said that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but in the rapidly advancing realm of football games, UFL had to hit the ground running to build a loyal fanbase and have a chance of succeeding. Unfortunately, the core component that’s vital in doing that, the gameplay, is way off the mark and there’s a shed load of work to do to improve things to a decent standard. It’s a shame because some of the ideas used in proceedings off the pitch actually have legs, but there’s not enough reason to stay for those aspects.
Free, or not, UFL is full of the kind of poor gameplay mechanics that have been weeded out of other football games over the last ten years. It’s a blast from the past, just not in a good way, and so it’s probably not worth your time right now.
UFL: A New Free-to-Play Football Game Challenges eFootball and EA FC – https://www.thexboxhub.com/ufl-a-new-free-to-play-football-game-challenges-efootball-and-ea-fc/
Download UFL on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/ufl/9NBBQK8PR7D6/0010
